American Updates Boarding Process, With New Priority & Groups

A couple of weeks ago, American Airlines announced plans to modify its boarding process, and the changes have been implemented as of today. These changes follow the Forth Worth-based carrier recently starting to actually enforce boarding priority, thanks to some simple new technology.

May 1, 2025 - 12:49

American Updates Boarding Process, With New Priority & Groups

A couple of weeks ago, American Airlines announced plans to modify its boarding process, and the changes have been implemented as of today. These changes follow the Forth Worth-based carrier recently starting to actually enforce boarding priority, thanks to some simple new technology.

How American has updated its boarding priority

American has modified its boarding priority as of today (May 1, 2025), in a move that the airline describes as being focused on making the boarding process simpler and more straightforward. With these changes, American still has pre-boarding and nine boarding groups, but who is included in each group has changed, as follows:

Pre-board is available to Concierge Key members, first and business class passengers, and families with children under two years old
Group 1 includes Executive Platinum members and active duty US military with ID
Group 2 includes AAdvantage Platinum Pro and oneworld Emerald members
Group 3 includes AAdvantage Platinum and oneworld Sapphire members
Group 4 includes AAdvantage Gold and oneworld Ruby members, premium economy passengers, and Citi AAdvantage Executive Card members
Group 5 includes Main Cabin Extra (excluding basic economy), AAdvantage members who earn 15,000 Loyalty Points, and eligible AAdvantage credit card members
Group 6 includes all other AAdvantage members
Group 7-8 includes other (non-basic) economy passengers
Group 9 includes basic economy passengers

There are a couple changes here that are most significant, if you ask me:

Executive Platinum members and active duty military are no longer able to board with first or business class passengers, but rather are called up afterwards, in a separate group
First and business class passengers are able to pre-board with Concierge Key members; I’m curious if anyone has any firsthand reports of whether pre-boarding is broken down into chunks or not, or whether Concierge Key members, first class, and business class passengers, all get called at once

Executive Platinums now board after first class

American starts boarding five minutes earlier

In addition to changing up boarding groups, as of May 1, 2025, American has started boarding domestic, narrow body mainline aircraft five minutes earlier than before. This means that on Airbus A319s and A320s, boarding now starts 35 minutes in advance, while on Boeing 737s and Airbus A321s, boarding now starts 40 minutes in advance.

Why is American starting boarding earlier? As the airline describes it, this is supposed to allow for a better paced boarding process and better management of overhead bin space.

The airline suggests that this will lead to fewer carry-on bags needing to be gate checked, customers having more time to get settled and find their seats, and “those in the premium cabin will experience the personalized service that they know and expect.” I’m skeptical of two of those claims, but I guess we’ll see, eh?

American is taking five extra minutes to board

My take on American’s boarding process changes

In general, the boarding process on US airlines is laughably complicated. That’s because boarding isn’t about getting everyone on the plane as quickly and efficiently as possible, but instead, it’s about coddling elites and selling ancillary services.

Airlines want to make money from allowing people to board early, whether that comes in the form of customers pursuing elite status, picking up a co-branded credit card, or outright paying for priority boarding.

With that in mind, I have a few thoughts on these changes:

I’m not really happy to see boarding start five minutes earlier, especially without American increasing its minimum connection time for its hubs; you don’t want to arrive late in the boarding process, when there might not be overhead bin space anymore
I actually appreciate American boarding first and business class before all elite tiers with published requirements, as that’s quite a contrast to United, where Premier 1K members board before first and business class
It’s not clear to me whether Concierge Key members are still invited to pre-board before first and business class, or if everyone is called up at once, because I’m sure some Concierge Key members wouldn’t be happy to lose their special call
It’s annoying how airlines both have a ton of boarding groups, and also have pre-boarding before that; like, why not make first and business class boarding part of a boarding group, rather than a non-boarding group?

The simpler the better, as far as I’m concerned

Bottom line

As of May 1, 2025, American has updated its boarding process. The airline now starts boarding domestic narrow body aircraft five minutes earlier, meaning that boarding starts 35-40 minutes before departure.

Beyond that, American has updated the order in which it boards people. First and business class passengers have been “upgraded,” while Executive Platinum members and active duty military have been “downgraded” (and maybe Concierge Key, assuming they’re not pre-boarded ahead of first and business class).

What do you make of American’s boarding priority updates?